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. 2016 Mar 1:160:151-6.
doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.12.039. Epub 2016 Jan 24.

Validity of the CAGE questionnaire for men who have sex with men (MSM) in China

Yen-Tyng Chen  1 , Umedjon Ibragimov  1 , Eric J Nehl  2 , Tony Zheng  3 , Na He  4 , Frank Y Wong  1
Affiliations

Validity of the CAGE questionnaire for men who have sex with men (MSM) in China

Yen-Tyng Chen et al. Drug Alcohol Depend. .

Abstract

Background: Detection of heavy drinking among men who have sex with men (MSM) is crucial for both intervention and treatment. The CAGE questionnaire is a popular screening instrument for alcohol use problems. However, the validity of CAGE for Chinese MSM is unknown.

Method: Data were from three waves of cross-sectional assessments among general MSM (n=523) and men who sell sex to other men ("money boys" or MBs, n=486) in Shanghai, China. Specifically, participants were recruited using respondent-driven, community popular opinion leader, and venue-based sampling methods. The validity of the CAGE was examined for different cutoff scores and individual CAGE items using self-reported heavy drinking (≥14 drinks in the past week) as a criterion.

Results: In the full sample, 75 (7.4%) of participants were classified as heavy drinkers. 32 (6.1%) of general MSM and 43 (8.9%) of MBs were heavy drinkers. The area under curve statistics for overall sample was 0.7 (95% CI: 0.36-0.77). Overall, the sensitivities (ranging from 18.7 to 66.7%), specificities (ranging from 67.5 to 95.8%), and positive predictive values (ranging from 14.1 to 26.4%) for different cutoff scores were inadequate using past week heavy drinking as the criterion. The ability of CAGE to discriminate heavy drinkers from non-heavy drinkers was limited.

Conclusions: Our findings showed the inadequate validity of CAGE as a screening instrument for current heavy drinking in Chinese MSM. Further research using a combination of validity criteria is needed to determine the applicability of CAGE for this population.

Keywords: CAGE; China; MSM; Validity.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

No conflict declared

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